Latin America at a historic crossroads in Cochabamba
by - 08.08.2008 16:05
This is a short summary of a really important account by Ramon Fernandez Duran, (an old friend of PGA) of the double meeting hosted last December 2006 in Cochabamba by the government of Evo Morales - a summit of the Latin-American heads of state and a conference attended by 3000 delegates of popular movements. They posed the essential question: will the resurgent left in Latin America only humanise globalisation and so-called development, or will it define a real alternative?
Ramon brings us good news. Thanks to the pressure from below, the question is at least (and at last) on the table!
Ramon's paper is 25 pages. This is just a very simplified summary, or rather a table of contents, designed to encourage Spanish readers to go find it on the PGA archives, and hopefully to find help to translate it all:
AMERICA LATINA EN UNA ENCRUCIJADA HISTORICA:
http://www.all4all.org/2007/04/3076.shtml
The summit of heads of state (Cumbre de la Comunidad Sudamericana de Naciones (CSN)) has been meeting for several years, but was this time convened in very different terms, by a government which still reflects the huge popular pressure from below.
"We cannot reduce the South American Community of Nations to an association to plan highways or credits which finally benefit essentially to the sectors linked to the world market. Our goal must be to forge a real unity in order to "live well". We say "live well" because we don't aspire to living better than others. We don't believe in (the ill-named) unlimited development, at the cost of others and of nature. We should be complementary, not in competition. We should share with, rather than profit from, our neighbors. "Living well" is not only a question of average income but of cultural identity, community, harmony between us and our madre tierra."
In his invitation, Evo also advocates the development of communal social property (other than of the state), defends cultural diversity (indigenous, afrodescendant and mestizo), the exclusion of water and biodiversity from the market and its management by local communities.
Even more important than the terms of the invitation, was the idea of convening simultaneously a conference of popular movements, which could by its presence exert a sort of pressure on the "real politik" of the "progressive" presidents.
For people close to PGA the account of the conference is reassuring. The PGA network as such has been basically inactive in Latin America these last years, but the "conference of the movements" (called by the Alianza Social Continental (ASC)), the network which has been fighting the continental free trade negotiations (FTAA / ALCA), seems to have been on the same political positions as the last PGA conference (also hosted by Evo Morales in Cochabamba - but this time on a much larger scale (may more delegates!). Here too it was the peasant and indigenous delegates (particularly the indigenous women), more than the urban movements, that set the tone. The final statement of the conference insists on the necessity of defending the peasant, indigenous and afrodescendant communities, that have not yet been modernised and integrated into the world market, as keys to any future strategy of political and social transformation towards other possible worlds, and recognising that already today, these communities represent the principal resistance to neoliberalism.
The statement also insists on the opposition to free trade (which only increases economic inequalities, increases dependency and limits sovereignty) and to export oriented economies (particularly of raw materials), agribusiness, and the megaprojects of IIRSA and the Plan Puebla Panama. The physical integration of the continent should facilitate contacts between peoples, not the pillage of the continent's resources.
Special importance was given to the problem of energy: the threats posed by oil extraction and the new threat of biofuels. Brazil alone plans to plant 13 million more hectares of sugar cane for biofuels - at the expense of small farmers, afrodescendants and the Amazon forest. In Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia hundreds of thousands of hectares of GMO soy are being planted, and in Colombia the whole Pacific coast rain forest is threatened by African palm plantations planned also for biofuels.
Increasing militarization and paramilitarisation is used to impose these options, often at the cost of genocide. Concerning fossil fuels, some indigenous peoples refuse all oil and mineral extraction on their territory, others would only accept it if the revenues were equitably redistributed and used to prepare a post fossil fuel economy. The new Bolivian law on oil, which recognises the right of local communities to be consulted on future oil prospection and to be correctly compensated, was considered a step in the right direction.
Needless to say, these perspectives don't have much in common with those of the heads of state that were meeting in parallel! Evo's position being unfortunately quite exceptional. Fortunately, the summit didn't decide much, but its conclusions were stronger concerning economic integration than political, going in the direction of a South American common market, cooperation on energy issues and concerted negotiations with the United States and Europe.
The article is also a very well argued essay on other developments (such as Oaxaca and the growing ungovernability of Mexico) the general world context and the deceptively "positive" and "peaceful" policy of the EU, whose real agenda in South America is just as destructive as that of the United States.
He concludes by a reflection on how all these contradictions (and in particular between the latin American political leadership and the social movements) are going to surely explode with the coming rarification of cheap energy and the problems of climate change. Like it or not, production is going to have to relocalize as transport costs rocket. We will be in all probability entering a prolonged period of systemic chaos before more sustainable forms of society are found. But will these forms be more just and democratic
or will they more resemble a "Mad Max" scenario? That is going to depend on the social movements and how much they can learn or retain of the local communities that are still largely outside the domination of the world market.
Ramon's paper is 25 pages. This is just a very simplified summary, or rather a table of contents, designed to encourage Spanish readers to go find it on the PGA archives, and hopefully to find help to translate it all:
AMERICA LATINA EN UNA ENCRUCIJADA HISTORICA:
http://www.all4all.org/2007/04/3076.shtml
The summit of heads of state (Cumbre de la Comunidad Sudamericana de Naciones (CSN)) has been meeting for several years, but was this time convened in very different terms, by a government which still reflects the huge popular pressure from below.
"We cannot reduce the South American Community of Nations to an association to plan highways or credits which finally benefit essentially to the sectors linked to the world market. Our goal must be to forge a real unity in order to "live well". We say "live well" because we don't aspire to living better than others. We don't believe in (the ill-named) unlimited development, at the cost of others and of nature. We should be complementary, not in competition. We should share with, rather than profit from, our neighbors. "Living well" is not only a question of average income but of cultural identity, community, harmony between us and our madre tierra."
In his invitation, Evo also advocates the development of communal social property (other than of the state), defends cultural diversity (indigenous, afrodescendant and mestizo), the exclusion of water and biodiversity from the market and its management by local communities.
Even more important than the terms of the invitation, was the idea of convening simultaneously a conference of popular movements, which could by its presence exert a sort of pressure on the "real politik" of the "progressive" presidents.
For people close to PGA the account of the conference is reassuring. The PGA network as such has been basically inactive in Latin America these last years, but the "conference of the movements" (called by the Alianza Social Continental (ASC)), the network which has been fighting the continental free trade negotiations (FTAA / ALCA), seems to have been on the same political positions as the last PGA conference (also hosted by Evo Morales in Cochabamba - but this time on a much larger scale (may more delegates!). Here too it was the peasant and indigenous delegates (particularly the indigenous women), more than the urban movements, that set the tone. The final statement of the conference insists on the necessity of defending the peasant, indigenous and afrodescendant communities, that have not yet been modernised and integrated into the world market, as keys to any future strategy of political and social transformation towards other possible worlds, and recognising that already today, these communities represent the principal resistance to neoliberalism.
The statement also insists on the opposition to free trade (which only increases economic inequalities, increases dependency and limits sovereignty) and to export oriented economies (particularly of raw materials), agribusiness, and the megaprojects of IIRSA and the Plan Puebla Panama. The physical integration of the continent should facilitate contacts between peoples, not the pillage of the continent's resources.
Special importance was given to the problem of energy: the threats posed by oil extraction and the new threat of biofuels. Brazil alone plans to plant 13 million more hectares of sugar cane for biofuels - at the expense of small farmers, afrodescendants and the Amazon forest. In Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia hundreds of thousands of hectares of GMO soy are being planted, and in Colombia the whole Pacific coast rain forest is threatened by African palm plantations planned also for biofuels.
Increasing militarization and paramilitarisation is used to impose these options, often at the cost of genocide. Concerning fossil fuels, some indigenous peoples refuse all oil and mineral extraction on their territory, others would only accept it if the revenues were equitably redistributed and used to prepare a post fossil fuel economy. The new Bolivian law on oil, which recognises the right of local communities to be consulted on future oil prospection and to be correctly compensated, was considered a step in the right direction.
Needless to say, these perspectives don't have much in common with those of the heads of state that were meeting in parallel! Evo's position being unfortunately quite exceptional. Fortunately, the summit didn't decide much, but its conclusions were stronger concerning economic integration than political, going in the direction of a South American common market, cooperation on energy issues and concerted negotiations with the United States and Europe.
The article is also a very well argued essay on other developments (such as Oaxaca and the growing ungovernability of Mexico) the general world context and the deceptively "positive" and "peaceful" policy of the EU, whose real agenda in South America is just as destructive as that of the United States.
He concludes by a reflection on how all these contradictions (and in particular between the latin American political leadership and the social movements) are going to surely explode with the coming rarification of cheap energy and the problems of climate change. Like it or not, production is going to have to relocalize as transport costs rocket. We will be in all probability entering a prolonged period of systemic chaos before more sustainable forms of society are found. But will these forms be more just and democratic
or will they more resemble a "Mad Max" scenario? That is going to depend on the social movements and how much they can learn or retain of the local communities that are still largely outside the domination of the world market.